Farewell Blog: All Good Things Come to an End

Wow. This has been a journey of around twelve years of writing “the early years of our family’s story as a young missionary couple headed to Lviv, Ukraine”.

There are several reasons why our season of blogging has come to an end.

The straw that broke the camel’s back is that we just became non-residential Ph.D. students with Indiana Wesleyan University in Organizational Leadership. We are on a 5-year journey that leaves little margin for “nice to haves”.

When you have little margin, some things in life must move to the “Things to Stop Doing” List. This blog, unfortunately, is one of them. But I mourn not, because 12 years was a considerable stretch – material to write a book from some day, no doubt.

The little margin we do have must be devoted to the main things that we truly love:

Leading the Epokha Team together. These people represent not only “work”, but community, local church, a deep love for teenagers, and a love for God.

Serving God through the greater Josiah Venture network. This past week, we both got to teach at the JV HR Leadership Academy (my own title for it), and God so gently reminded me that not only am I a full participant in this organization, but that my opportunity to inspire, bless, and invest in leaders of all shapes and sizes has no limits right now. God revealed to me a year ago “Go Wide” and therefore I will.

Our kids. They are growing up more and more everyday. Dylan’s getting ready for 1st grade. (We do Saturday school instead of formal kindergarten, b/c that concept is different here.) It was a privilege to take them with us on our 15-year wedding anniversary cruise because we love being a family. This is us:

Staying Sane. The margin left after serving God, ministering in Central & Eastern Europe and caring for team and family, we long to care for our souls – relaxing and enjoying the short days on earth that God has willed us. This is us – celebrating 15 years of incredible marriage and 11 years in Ukraine. These once-in-a-life-time moments, like floating past Pelican Bay in St. Maarten, observing the destruction behind us of Hurricane Irma, which took 8 lives on this small island back in the fall of 2017, are literal reminders that life is short. Nothing is guaranteed. Christ is truly all we have.

Work Hard, Love Hard, Play Hard

There are only 168 hours in the week, and they are currently wrapped up in other things. There is a season for all things under heaven, and this blog has just come to its end.

All glory be to God from this part of our journey. Until next time…

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2018 at 3:09 pm. It is filed under General Updates.
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